Saturday, 7 April 2007

"THREE BOOKS THAT CHANGED MY WORLD"

Taking a timely cue from Zola's site, the burrow invites entries on the above topic, with brief explanations of how the chosen books influenced you. A fourth, imaginary, book which you would have liked to be influenced by is an optional extra.

The thread will remain open for 72 hours, after which a small prize will be awarded for the entry judged the most interesting by the burrow team [anticant, ben and the beadle].

Always eager to stick his truncheon in first, the beadle has already chosen his own yet-to-be-written book - "The Naked Kayaker", by Zola. The mental visions inspired by this have prompted the beadle to redouble his patrols around the riverside burrow flagpole. No sightings of suspicious-looking craft have yet been reported.

13 comments:

The Naked Kayaker.Let me tell you a story.One day, Commok the eskimo was cold in his kayak.He had a wonderful idea. He decided to put a paraffin heater into the front end of his boat to make it warm. He kayaked away and suddenly his boat sank.Moral of the story?.'You can't have your kayak and heat it.'

1. "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" by Milan Kundera. If you've seen the film (I haven't) but not read the book I'm sure that they are two completely different experiences. I've chosen this because its one of the first "proper" novels I read; it made me realise just how much a work of fiction could have a high political, historical and philosophical content and I found it tremendously inspiring.

2. "Europe - A History" by Norman Davies. This happened to come out at a time when I was spending a lot of time feeling like I needed to do something about my lack of knowledge of history. I'd recommend it to anyone, its insightful, playful, very well presented and never less than fascinating and compelling. It set me on the road to reading dozens of history books but I'd elevate this and Davies' other works above the best of the rest.

3. "Foucault's Pendulum" by Umberto Eco. I could cut and paste some of my comments about Kundera's book here. Anyway I bought this because it was being sold off for £3, and I'm glad I did. This was the first book that made me cry, so moving did I find the end.

ACROSS A lifetime in some respects now starting to be 'long', I recall with great affection and mysterious early feelings of, precisely, horror, /The Roly-Poly Pudding/, by Miss Potter.

THEN, In 1975, the wife of a friend indited to me her used soft-cover copy of old Jung's /Memories, Dreams and Reflections/, which opened the door to a reading of all of the jungian stuff by me throughout the 1980s (including Hannah, Hillman and von Franz)....

FINALLY, As to 'magical fiction', there is /The Palace of Love/, by Mr Jack Vance -- which prepared me to appreciate all of Borges!

'Si Le Grain ne Meurt - Andre Gides.A book that got me through the death of my Mother.I identified with it......the very fact that after the death of his mother he felt he would be,at last, free, and the difficulties he faced.Oh, yes, a big thank you for that.

Next - my all-time favourite..........Eastern Approaches,Fitzroy Macleqan..a fascinating story, and well told, as a history book it should almost be compulsory......but then we are really spoiled for choice......

And 'The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame.A story for all ages, covering all emotions it seems to me, a truly wonderful,wonderful tale.....

And, as a 'oh I wish' story, well it just has to be the 'Tales of Utter Filth and Deep Depravity 'by the one and only Beadle.Bounder that he is, a story per night of obscene erotica ,played out as he polishes his bits and bobs, so to speakhitherto banned worldwide and only available in the burrow, after dark,as indeed are we........

Welp, seeing I've read more scores and parts to symphonies and the like than bound ramblings of the mind, my offerings are far less interesting than the others mentioned above, especially those of the good farmer and StarsWars Sasquatch Mr. Wookie.

My first choice would most definitely be Meyer's 'How To Shit In The Woods' if I were being facetious, which I am.My actual first choice would be more along the lines of Melville's classic tale of a boy, a whale and good and evil. This novel aided me greatly upon leaving home and discovering my own adventures for the first time. Next would have to be a new one.. 'Being Caribou' by Karsten Heuer. A vivid acount of true northern adventure and nature conservation in Canada's far north. Heuer and wife trek by foot across the tundra and mountains of the Yukon and Alaska following the great Porcupine Caribou heard to their calving grounds on the arctic ocean. Along the way they and the reader learn how to let go of being human. It inspires my adventurous side just thinking of it.And lastly, this choice would probably change with my mood and the day.....But the one that sticks out in my feeble memory and opened my mind to what is 'out there' is 'The Elegant Universe' of Brian Greene, Super strings, Hidden Dimensions and the Quest for the Ultimate theory. The story of where Einstein left off.... 'nuff said.

[If I could stick another in there and not get disqualified from the game it would be Whitman's 'Leaves of Grass' for sheer enjoyment's sake.]

For my imagination.....'The Conversations of 1Loneranger and His Precious Cat Huron'.There ye have it.Best

Thank you for the compliment, Ms. Lavender, but - unlike members of HM Forces - a Beadle's lips are sealed by a professional vow of secrecy. The burrow's murkier secrets, if any, will remain inviolate in my bosom. Not even Rebekah Wade and all Murdoch's millions will tempt me otherwise.

OH, Well, I expect it is because I /am/ an incurable fan of /Cousin Phyllis/, Emett-trains & Austen that I may say that the best read I've had this winter now over has been a 'Penguin USA'omnibus-printing of the stories of New England writers Sarah Orne Jewett & Mary Wilkins Freeman -- only when once one has read these things, and William Allen white's 1930s biography of Calvin Coolidge, /A Puritan in Babylon/, may one even entertain the hope of approaching successfully the /ouevre/ of -- H P Lovecraft!

s/Wook, epistemologue et raconteur de Minnesota midi

PS: Which brings up -- Montaigne! The 16th French is jolly; or, the Florio-translation of same.

PPS: What of bound books, of Heath Robinson-drawings?????

PPPS: 'Twas as a young man in the 1960s, and after having seen the film and read Flora Armitage's biography, that I then came upon Terence Rattigan's 'expose', of T E Lawrence. I was horrified and offended in my hero-worship; and, I /knew/ forever after, and precisely, what my old Dad meant, whenever thereafter he typed some wretch or other as 'a cunt'.

About Me

anticant is the blogname of a lifelong free speech and civil rights campaigner. A lot of his life since WW2 has been taken up with battling against cruel and over-bossy laws, censorship, censoriousness, and Nanny Knows Best types. Now elderly and in poor health, anticant hopes his memories and thoughts will be of interest to those engaged in today's struggles for freedom, democracy, and a more hopeful tomorrow.
e-mail: anticant@hotmail.co.uk